The Officer's Daughter: A Memoir of Family and Forgiveness

by Elle Johnson, Janina Edwards (Narrator)

" The Officer’s Daughter  is a masterpiece. More than that, it's the perfect book for our troubled time. Johnson has written the deepest, most emotionally resonant understanding of forgiveness and justice I have ever read."—Darin Strauss, bestselling author of  Half a Life

The author reflects on a terrible tragedy that forever altered the fabric of her family in this remarkable memoir, a heart-wrenching story of love, violence, coming of age, secrets, justice, and forgiveness. 

When she was sixteen, Elle Johnson lived in Queens with her family; she dreamed of being best friends with her popular, cool cousin Karen from the Bronx.  Coming from a family of black law enforcement officers, Elle felt that Karen would understand her in a way no one else could. Elle’s father was a highly protective, at times overbearing, parole officer; her uncle, Karen’s dad, was a homicide detective. 

On an ordinary night, the Johnson family’s lives were changed forever. Karen was shot and killed in a robbery gone wrong at the Burger King where she worked. The NYPD and FBI launched a cross-country manhunt to find the killers, and the subsequent trials and media circus marked the end of Elle's childhood innocence.

Thirty years later, Elle was living in Los Angeles and working as a television writer, including on many police procedural shows, when she received an unexpected request. One of Karen’s killers was eligible for parole, and her older brother asked Elle to write a letter to the parole board arguing against his release. Elle realized that before she could condemn a man she’d never met to remain in prison, she had to face the hard truths of her own past: of a family who didn’t speak of the murder and its devastating effect, of the secrets they buried, of a complicated father she never truly understood. 

The Officer's Daughter is a piercing memoir that explores with unflinching honesty what parents can and cannot do to protect their children, the reverberations of violence on survivors’ lives, and the overwhelming power of forgiveness, even in the face of unspeakable tragedy.

Genres: True Crime, Memoir, Nonfiction, Audiobook, Biography Memoir, Crime

224 pages, Hardcover

First published February 16, 2021

Reviews

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Narrated with tremendous insight and compassion, “The Officer’s Daughter: A Memoir of Family and Forgiveness” (2021) is written by Elle Johnson, a television screen writer for the notable programs: The Fosters, Finding Carter, The Glades and Law and Order, she lives in California.
On
April 4th 1981, her beloved cousin Karen, 16, was shot to death in a robbery while working at her neighborhood Burger King in the Bronx. According to various media accounts Karen’s shooting had been an accident. Karen’s father, a police officer and her own father, a parole officer had vowed to bring those responsible to justice. The entire community mourned this tragedy along with her family.
Haunted by this unspeakable loss, Johnson related the lasting effects on her family: Karen’s parents eventually separated, though never divorced, and had asked her not to visit because she closely resembled Karen. The impact of domestic violence within her own family, along with the gruff harshness of her father’s demeanor and decline from a cancer diagnosis had to be dealt with.

Tragically, gun violence involving children/teens/young adults has risen to epidemic levels since Karen was killed. The man who murdered Karen was always denied parole. In 2014, Johnson was asked to write a letter to the parole board, and couldn’t help but wonder if he was truly sorry or filled with remorse. There was no letter of apology for her family on file with the court. For Johnson, the value of sharing her story kept Karen and her father close to her heart. **With thanks to the Seattle Public Library.

[Jeanette · Rating 2 out of 5]

Writing continuity and flow is flawed. This doesn't hang together well. She seems trying to get in tangents of days or events to point to the title or murder case issues. Often they just don't. I thought the dedication intro was central. Hope her mother does as the author suggested. Forgive her for writing this. Because this book is cited upon direction between/ with her own father and their relationship far more than re her cousin's case. Or any wider issue of parole priorities either.

The trailer for this is misleading. It is not a masterpiece or is it deep. Not shallow either, but also not at all in the context as stated in the description.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

In 1981, Johnson’s sixteen-year-old cousin Karen was shot and killed during a robbery at a Bronx Burger King, where she was working night shifts to raise money for a trip to Spain. Karen’s father was a homicide detective and Johnson’s was a parole officer, so the author understood the ins and outs of the policework that went into finding Karen’s killer, Santiago Ramirez, during a two-week, nationwide manhunt. His parole hearing in 2014 led her to delve back into her memories of the crime and its aftermath, while learning all she could about Ramirez through trial transcripts and other documents. In seeking to understand him, she found that she was also able to forgive her father for the domestic violence he inflicted on her mother. While I was impressed by how painstakingly Johnson reconstructs scenes and events from the 1980s, the story was overly detailed and I felt it was more like a novel or a plotline from one of her TV projects – Johnson has written for Homicide and Bosch. This might appeal to readers of Memorial Drive and Your House Will Pay.

[Amber · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is definitely a memoir that pulls at your heart strings, Elle writes about her cousin Karen. When they were both 16 years old Karen was working at a Burger King and was shot point blank in the face with a sawed off shotgun. The author goes through the details of the incident and how it impacted her family, the family that was torn in having to bury a 16 year old girl. Especially since Karen was murdered when two men and another in a get away car were trying to rob the Burger King.  The author also went through the emotions she felt at that time, how the murder of her cousin effected her achademics and even her personality. Elle has not a difficult but a very different relationship with her father who was a Parole Officer. He liked to control all aspects of his family's lives and was  very mistaken on what he could and could not control in his daughters lives.  Then, the author also jumps into the present time and explains or basically talks out her emotions and forgiveness of the men who are up for Parole. The author sets out to find out the truth of what happened that night and she writes a letter for the man that accidentally shot her cousin or not a letter but a statement for his parole hearing.
Now, this story will squeeze your heart. There is no way you are going to read this book and not have your heart strings pulled. I requested this book because I am a Crime Junkie and anything about true crime I like to read, what I read wasn't what I had originally expected but it was so good. I felt the emotions written were real and raw. I definitely would recommend this to anyone who loves true crime or also anyone who has been in the situation where forgiveness is needed. I would definitely read more from this author.

[Chelsea · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s not a spoiler to say the author’s cousin “had her face blown off by a sawed off shotgun at 16 years old”. This brutal phrase is repeated often throughout the book. The story of her cousin, Karen’s short life, but also of Johnson’s relationship with her father and coming to terms with her cousin’s untimely death during both girls’ 16th year. Touches on the lives of the killers and the court system.

[Gayle · Rating 1 out of 5]

Interesting, but since I knew Karen Marsh, I see the inaccuracies here in the description of her life and death, and it bothered me. The writer is hyper-focused on skin color and race and likens her beliefs to Karen, when the complete opposite is true, for instance. I think this was a way of the author working out her own serious familial concerns, using Karen’s death as a starting point. And as Karen’s friend, I did not appreciate it.

[Cynthia · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you are hearing a lot of the word "intersecionality" bantered about these days, this book does a pretty good job of defining many aspects of that concept. Elle Johnson grew up a POC girl-woman with parents who had had to work hard to gain a good education and learn all the classist techniques to rise in their marketability as a middleclass New York family. Elle's father was a parole officer, which gave him certain access to legal information. He worked long hours to maintain his reputation.

Elle's mother was an English language teacher in a private school. Elle and her sister were sent to a private Lutheran School where they further learned "to pass" as white, although she talks about the racism that popped up unexpectedly in high school. (Both Elle and her sister are Harvard graduates.) While her Dad seems quite proud, protective, and loving towards his daughters, he is also narcissistic at times, and the misogyny that occurs then sort of cancels out the loving, caring traits for his daughters and wife.

While Elle and her sister seemingly enjoyed a level of privilege and a protective father/mother, they were also witnesses to violence in their home. And in her latter teens, an incident occurred that affect the whole family circle in different/similar ways, as documented by Elle's memories, dreams, and eventually, her more systematic research thirty years after the event.

Elle Johnson is a successful TV crime writer. She brings a professional sheen to a sad, dark, frightening, story and writes about her personal journey of forgiveness that could well be a model for others who find themselves confronting similar crises in their families.

[Magaly C. · Rating 4 out of 5]

At 16, Elle Johnson's cousin, Karen, was murdered at point-blank range in a robbery-gone-wrong. Johnson recalls how this tragedy affected her family. With the recollections, Johnson also relates her relationship with her parents, in particular, with her father who was strict and abusive (though physical abuse, as her mother repeats, only happened 6 times, 3 of which Elle witnesses). When one of Karen's murderers is up for parole and Elle is asked to write a letter to the parole board, she must sort through her memories and feelings. Will she find forgiveness for the killer, for her father, for herself?

This was a heart-wrenching memoir about Johnson's life having grown up in a strict household as the daughter of a parole officer and her feelings of loneliness in adolescence. Though the memoir begins with Karen's murder and is the primary focus of the memoir, there is also a lot of insight into Johnson's own life rather than that of her cousin. Johnson comes to realize that she was not as close with her cousin as she could have been while alive. In order to begin writing the letter, Johnson researches the case, which brings up a lot of the past she had to work through in the journey towards forgiving the murderers. I would have loved to know more about who Karen was aside from the few anecdotes Johnson includes as the primary focus of the memoir is painted to be about the murder but is actually about Johnson's childhood. I still think this was an interesting read about someone who contributed to many of my favorite shows and with whom I was unaware. 3.5 rounded up.

[Mary Sisney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Johnson’s book is perfect for this period when we’re discussing the rise in violent crime and the need to reform the police and the criminal justice system. She is the daughter of a parole officer, and her first cousin, the daughter of a homicide detective (her father) and parole officer (her mother and Johnson’s aunt), was murdered during a robbery of Burger King (since my now retired brother worked at several fast food places, including for many years Burger King, I felt her family’s pain more than some readers might). What Johnson shows in examining the killer and his accomplices and her occasionally abusive father is that crime, punishment, guilt, innocence, blame, shame, and forgiveness are all complicated. The one false note seems to be her guilt over beating up her father when she was defending her mother from his assault. I don’t know why she would feel remorse for being angry that her father was beating her mother and for helping her mother beat the crap out of him, especially since that beat down ended his occasional domestic violence. Maybe because she writes for television, Johnson knows how to tell a crime story effectively. I especially liked the way she opened the book with a cold telling of what happened to her cousin and then near the end of the book began a chapter with the same sentence, but this time it was the beginning of a letter written to the parole board. This tale of crime, punishment, families, and forgiving is one of my favorites of the many books read this year.

[Brenda Selner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Story of author’s soulful working through the murder of her cousin when they were both 16 years old. Though the story itself is heartbreaking, what makes me pause is that she became an atheist as a result. I cannot imagine going through life without crying out to God and knowing he hears.

[LBK · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a tough book but so necessary and fascinating.

[Melissa Koesel · Rating 2 out of 5]

OK, I don’t like to talk about someone’s memoirs as being flawed, but I received an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I did not like this book at all. It’s a short story, and yet I really struggled to get through it. I like crime stories and enjoy this genre yet I couldn’t get into this book or the characters. The flow and the set up were all wrong. It flip-flopped between present and past, which is fine and I think everyone is used to that style by by now in books, but sometimes it was unclear which timeframe the author was speaking about. She would date chapter headers as past present etc., and then proceed to change into another timeframe. It just didn’t fit and seemed like she was saying “Oh, I have something to tell you, let me just stick this here.” It was like listening to somebody’s train of thought that just came out of their head and out on to paper, instead of a book that should’ve been logically thought out. Things were very missed miss-matched and haphazard. This made it hard to follow what was going on sometimes and get into the characters. The characters were real life people who you were supposed to have some sort of a emotion for but ultimately I just didn’t, and I feel bad about that, but I think this needs a lot of work because it could be good!

[Lindaellen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoy family sagas, and this memoir was no exception. I found the writing to be a little disjointed and a little too much like a television script, but I enjoyed reading about the family dynamics and the emotions involved. This memoir is a worthwhile read.

[Teresa Vu · Rating 5 out of 5]

To be completely honest with everyone, I really thought I was going to dislike this book. I read the reviews (some of them weren't all that great), and at the beginning, I was worried that it was going to be a really boring book that I would have to try to tread through.

Surprisingly, I found myself connecting with the author. Throughout the book, Johnson focuses on discussing her feelings towards her cousin Karen's killer(s), as well as her father. Growing up, my father's attitude and personality was very similar to Johnson's father (possessive, hot-tempered, unpredictable, scary, surprisingly generous at moments); at times she was upset with him, remembered the trauma that her father put her through, and some of the good times where her father shined. It took her a long time to forgive her father. I understood what she was going through; there were times where she wanted to let go and forgive him, and there were also times where there was so much anger and sadness that she was unable to.

Although I've never experienced a murder of a family member, I felt the rawness of the grief and rage that she encountered. How do you forgive someone that murdered your family member? Or maybe you do want to forgive them, but you know you can never bring that family member back. It's a difficult decision that she had to face.

Overall, I enjoyed reading this book; a must-read memoir in my list.

**A huge thanks to Goodreads, Harper-Collins and author Elle Johnson for this ARC; all thoughts and opinions are my own and are in no way influenced by this giveaway**

[Kathleen Gray · Rating 5 out of 5]

This memoir is about more than a horrible crime- it's about examining the things about your family that you've shoved down. Johnson's cousin Karen was murdered in a botched robbery when they were 16. When Santiago Rodriguez, one of those convicted for the crime, is up for parole, Johnson finds herself unable to write a letter arguing against it, as her brother has urged. Now a writer in Hollywood (it shows), she sets off on a quest to know something more about Rodriguez than that which has become legend in the family. Her father and Karen's were both in law enforcement, which shaped how the family thought about crime but her father was a conflicted man. It's hard to review memoirs because it feels as though you are passing judgment on someone's life- but Johnson has done that on her own. The twin influences of Karen's murder and her father's abuse and control issues shaped her. Her ability to forgive is impressive. Thanks to Edelweiss for the ARC. A good thought provoking read.

[Pamela · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's not often that you come across a memoir so brutally honest and beautifully written as Elle Johnson's book. She brings a depth of experience and wisdom to a childhood event that resonates throughout her life. My heart broke at the tragedy that her family experiences, the loss of her beloved cousin, and how she must reckon with it years later as the killer faces parole again. She paints a complex picture not only of her relationship with her cousin, and her yearning for closeness, but also of her relationship with her father. It's obvious that this single event changed lives forever, including hers, and her powerful attention to details and memory make it all come alive. The dedication to her mother makes clear that this was not an easy book for her to write, not that I would expect it to be. It is also incredibly timely in an era when family divides, racism, restorative justice, and forgiveness are more at the forefront of our minds than ever. Elle Johnson has provided a story that may help us better understand those ruptures and find a way forward. Highly recommended.

[Shawna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Emotionally, I understand everything the author put in this book, and I know she was trying to make the point that we as people aren’t only the worst thing we’ve ever done – there is redemption, there is hope. She was making the connection between her father (who beat her mother) and the men who participated in the robbery that ended with her cousin dead, maybe my issue is that I didn’t think it was perfectly executed or perhaps there just wasn’t enough material present for her to write the book she wanted to write.

I too lost a cousin to violence, a very complicated grief since it was only one of many horrible dominos that eventually fell. So I get all of her indecision, and conflicting emotions. She’s asked to write a letter to the parole board, but then she never gets around to writing it, and the men are paroled. So, hmm.

I also, didn’t care for her blunt, graphic opening statement to this memoir. I mean, I get what she was trying to achieve, I just thought it was in poor taste, done for shock value, and demeans her cousin as nothing more than a mutilated corpse. Her cousin deserved more respect than that. She also repeats that line later in the book, and I just stopped and thought, why are you saying this again? What does this achieve, are you trying to shock some kind of emotional response out of us or yourself?

[Michaela Haas · Rating 5 out of 5]

A masterful memoir about the many nuances of forgiveness. When the author gets the request to write a letter to the parole board in charge of the decision whether to release the man who murdered the author's cousin, it is the beginning of a journey that takes many unexpected turns. The memories take her deeper and deeper into confronting her own desires and fears, remembering long-suppressed conflicts with her father, a controlling parole officer, and the fallout of a crime that still reverberates decades later. I love the sophisticated observations of the author who grew up Black in a predominantly white environment. A very timely research into what justice means, how to decide whether someone is worthy of redemption, and also a rare intimate glimpse into the conflicted role of a Black parole officer who is desperate for control in a world where he has none. There are so many levels to this must-read memoir I think I'll read it all over again.

[Banu · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a memoir about growing up in Queens, NY in a family of law enforcement officers, and dealing with the unspeakable tragedy of losing a dear family member to gun violence in a horrific attack. Johnson is the daughter of an overbearing parole officer, and her uncle is a homicide detective who works on the case of his own daughter getting killed at the Burger King where she worked. Probably because of her family background, the author ends up working in LA as a TV writer and consultant on police procedural shows. Thirty years after the murder, Johnson has to revisit the tragedy because the murderer comes up for parole. Her book examines the lasting impact of tragedy on her family. Overall, I find memoirs interesting to understand what motivates an author especially with regard to a whole body of work, but I rarely find them wonderful books in and of themselves, and this book is no exception to that pattern. But it's a worthwhile read nonetheless.

[Dean Robertson · Rating 2 out of 5]

While I can appreciate the author's retelling of this tragedy, the writing of this jumped around a lot and made it very hard to follow what the focus of the story was. It bounces back and forth between losing her cousin and the lost potential of their friendship but seems to switch into the tumultuous relationship with her father and back into the murder case in all of what feels like a blink.

I did appreciate the perspective the author provided from her father and fellow parole officers when discussing their views on the parolees they were tasks with rehabilitating. The idea of trying to rehabilitate individuals who were never properly habituated by society in the first place is a concept I had never really thought about prior to reading this book.

I really went into this book wanting to love it but alas, poor structuring of its telling made it a big disappointment for me.

[Megan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is about Johnson’s own experiences with violence and crime, as opposed to being solely about the case of her cousin’s murder. The writing is decent, and the author is good at self-reflection and leading the reader through her thoughts. I can’t quite pinpoint why I wasn’t more moved by this book - maybe Johnson doesn’t spend enough time on the details I find most significant and goes off in directions I found less interesting. Like, the details of her and her cousin’s 16th birthday parties was way too much, and the details of the time she finally stood up to her father way too little for me. Anyway, this book does provide some insight into the psychological complexity that results from losing a loved one to violence.

[Perry Austin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great read/listen. I received it on Audio. I finished the book in 2 days. I will listen a 2nd time to make notes. I don't really critique the writing of a book like this as I see it more as the painful journey of a Soul, and I don't think it is wise for me to rate anyone's journey. I love the topic of Forgiveness; it is so essential to the growth of every soul, both the perpetrator and the victim (families of victims). But I know that when serious harm has been done, forgiveness could very well be nearly the hardest challenges any person will ever face. One of my favorite stories of forgiveness was the one of Arna Washington and her daughter's killer, Ron Flowers.

[Christa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you Harper and NetGalley for the ARC of The Officer's Daughter by Elle Johnson. This story has a good message especially for someone who can identify with the events in the story. Unfortunately, I did not have any personal connection with the events and characters in Elle's story so I found it difficult to read. Although, I feel that those who have had to consider other's release from prison or had a loved one put in prison or even lost someone close to them to a crime could very much enjoy her story.

[Tina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Johnson's cousin was shot and killed while working at a Burger King in the Bronx when she was just sixteen years old. Johnson's father and uncle both worked in law enforcement and vowed to find the killer and get revenge. Now, forty years later, Johnson recounts that time in her life and how Karen's death affected her and her family. Johnson's memoir must have been cathartic to write as she also deals with conflicting feelings about her father, who abused her mother and acted as a dictator in their family.

[Jane Martinez · Rating 4 out of 5]

So well written - and deeper and more introspective than you might think. Initially I thought the narrative was about the effects of a cousin's murder, but in the end it's not just how that event changed her life, but also how her family shaped and formed the person she has become - and the work that she's had to do to break cycles of generational curses and the fictions that were created because of them - using the one event to magnify and illustrate the larger patterns of control and abuse throughout her upbringing.

[Patricia Walters · Rating 3 out of 5]

Being a police officers daughter myself this book initially intrigued me, but the more i read it I found myself struggling with the presentation of this story versus its writing. The synopsis of one law enforcement family dealing with a murder of their young daughter Karen gets skewed by the authors frustration with her family being overprotective of her as both her father and uncle work in the harsh streets of NY as police and parole officers in the eighties. I struggle to understand her judgement of her family's behavior in the face of tragedy and beyond.

[Elizabeth · Rating 1 out of 5]

I just couldn't finish this one. The opening sentence when she said her cousin's face was blown off just set the tone for the book for me. The writing is not cohesive enough to bring a story to light for me; it's all fragmented memories. The tragedy is awful, but the way she talks about her cousin as her best friend was all hopeful, they really didn't spend a lot of quality time together, or so she tells us. Maybe one day I will try and power through it again, but for now, it's going on my DNF shelf!

[Joanne Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Elle's cousin is 16, same as Elle, when she is killed in a robbery of the fast-food restaurant where she works. Elle and her family must come to terms with the disturbing death and with the violence that lurks just under the surface in their interactions with each other. Elle relives the trauma as an adult when she is asked to write a letter arguing against the release of the killer. The book explores issues of belonging and forgiveness.

[Jacquelyn · Rating 1 out of 5]

Let's be mad at the 50+ cars who went to the burial site (of your cousin you barely knew), only to say you "forgive yourself" pages later? The only thing worse than the crime itself is people barely involved making it about them. The author didn't write to the parole board, had one email with a defendant, yet has wrote a whole book profiting off the experience. The book is not badly written, not about the topic advertised, very misleading.

[Marietta · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very well-written book that toes the line between memory piece and investigation. I really appreciate authors who interrogate their perceptions of long-term memories, and especially those who seek outside sources for clarity. Johnson does this with depth and intelligence, while making no pretense of objectivity as she follows the ripple effect of an unthinkable family tragedy.